DOW RALLIES 211: Here's what you need to know

Stocks rallied hard on Friday after markets saw the latest Greek
proposal as an encouraging sign that a deal will be reached this
weekend to keep Greece in the euro.

First, the scoreboard:

Dow: 17,760,
+211, (+1.2%)

S&P 500:
2,076, +25, (+1.2%)

Nasdaq:
4,997, +75, (+1.5%)

And now, the top stories on
Friday:

1. It was all about Greece on
Friday. On Thursday, Greece submitted
an updated bailout proposal to its European creditors ahead
of a deadline this weekend. The Eurogroup finance ministers are
set to meet to discuss the plan on Saturday while a European
Union-wide summit is scheduled for Sunday. The plan was, more or
less, the same thing that Greece had been offered two weeks ago
when it walked away from negotiations with its European creditors
and called a surprise referendum. The market took this as a good
sign for the potential of a Greek deal. Seen another way, the
last 6 months — and particularly the last 2 weeks —
were a big waste of time for Greece.

2. Meanwhile, Greece is facing
a shortage of funding in its banking system, which has been
frozen for nearly 2 weeks while capital controls have been in
place over the same period. A
report from Reuters on Friday, citing a senior Greek banker,
said that Greek banks will be 10 to 14 billion euros of fresh
capital to keep then afloat, even if a deal is reached this
weekend.

3. We heard from Federal
Reserve chair Janet Yellen on Friday for the first time since the
June FOMC meeting. During a
speech in Cleveland, Yellen reiterated her expectation that
later this year it will be appropriate for the Federal Reserve to
raise interest rates for the first time since July 2006.
Regarding the situation in Greece, Yellen said only that it
remains "unresolved."

4. The number of oil rigs in
use in the US
rose again this week by 5 to 645. This was the second
straight week that the number of rigs in use rose. Ahead of the
report,
we highlighted commentary from Morgan Stanley from back in
April that shows that, well, they nailed it. Twelve weeks ago,
the firm wrote that they expected the drop in oil rig counts —
which was greater than 65% when all was said and done — would
stop in 12 weeks' time.